some unusual thai and chinese uses

> SOME UNUSUAL THAI AND CHINESE USES

OF CERAMICS

by

C. Nelson Spinks

Considering the elements of animistic magic almost universally

associated with pottery and pottery-making, it is not surprising that the

Thai and the Chinese from early times have made and used an

extraordinarily wide variety of ceramic articles; principally, of course,

household bowls and jars.

In my earlier book on Thai ceramics I, I attempted to explore some

of the more unconventional uses of ceramics in southeast Asia, especial

ly in Siam Here, I endeavour to explore further that fascinating but

esoteric subject on the basis of additional research and observation, and

describe some strange if not bizarre uses of ceramics by the Thai and the

Chinese.

I have yet to encounter any small Thai earthenware or glazed stone

ware plates or dishes, for the same reason I have never seen such wares

among the Chaliang, Sukhothai and Sawankhalok and other glazed wares

of the Thai : the Thai simply did not use such utemils for serving their

food because they have traditionally preferred to eat directly from their

incomparable earthenware mbh khao (rice-cooking pots), or off a piece

of banana leaf cut and folded to improvise a di sh or plate2.

1) C. Nelson Spinks. The Ceramic Wares of S iam, second revised ed . (Bangkok, The Siam Society, 1973), chapter 10.

2) Even today the banana leaf tray is in vogue among the Thai for serving certain kinds of custards. and many roadside vendors in the rural di stricts still offer their patrons rice and kaeng p het (Thai: "hot curry" ) on the traditional banana-palm lea f . That simple utensil, known to the Thai as a krathong or ''katlwng" . is made from a squa re sect ion of the broad leaf of the banana palm cut and folded to make a sha llow. box-like tra y. the corners of which are held flfmly in place by small slivers of ba mb oo called lfloiklot . Today, however, in their ready acceptance of me.ch anical convenience as a substitute for tradition a nd taste, some Thai food vend ors now di spense with the esthetic bamboo 111mklat and secure the corners of their mass-produced palm-leaf kralhong by means of wire staples!

248 C. Nelson Spinks

The old Chaliang brown-glazed stonewares were mostly made to

serve primarily as storage vessels. which may account for their limited,

almost standardized forms, with undecorated surfaces. The unadorned,

pear-shaped, vase-like pieces and the primitive-looking, little-ea red brown

jugs were most likely made for holding oil, or such condiments as nampla

(fi sh sauce}, or for medicinal or cosmetic preparations. None of the

early Chali ang brown-g lazed stonewares appears to have been made for

use as a cooking uten si l, a function rese rved by tradition for the thin

walled earthenware moh khao or moh ka eng.

Precision-made covered bowls or boxes, as distinguished from

storage jars wi th loose-fitting lids, are rat her rare among the early brown

glazed Chaliang monochromes. Apparently that type of container was not

manufactured in southeast Asia until after the advent of Chinese influ

ence, around the beginning oftbe fourteenth century A.D. It would also

appear that that new fo rm was developed a mong the Annamese wares,

and may have reached Siam from that source. Such pieces were later

produced en masse by the Thai Sawankhalok potters in painted wares,

celadon and brown glazes.

The typical Chaliang brown glaze was made from some ferriferous

material that was probably readily available in the vicinity of the Cha

liang-Sawankhalok ceram1c complex. Painted decoration was applied

to the Sawankhalok decorated wares directly to the paste, not over a

slip as in the case of the Sukhuthai painted wares3.

The curious Ayuddhaya period earthenware pot (see figure 1) with

a handle, chimney spout and flat base, was probably a special pot for

making soup, similar to the metal soup-pots that appear even today in

Thailand near the end of a meal in a Chinese restaurant, in which the soup is kept hot by burning charcoal placed inside the chimney-like spout

3) On page 64 of The Ceramic Wa res of Siam , I mi stakenl y wrote that the painted

decora tion on the Sawa nkha lok pieces was applied directly to the light slip

over wbich a glaze was finally added . That error was called to my attention

by Mr. Azurna Yoshikuni in his well-known article ··sukotai no Yakim ono"

(Sukhuthai wares) that appeared in the ceramic journal Tuetw (Tokyo),

October 1968, p. 16 .

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SOME UNUSUAL THAI AND CHINESE USES OF CERAMICS 249

projecting from the center of the vessel. The Chinese refer to such a

utensil as a niuhi huaylao, which may be simply translated as a "fire pot

for cooking soup". The vessels used in Chinese restaurants in Thailand

today, however, are usually made of aluminium or brass, rather than

earthenware. Moreover, the modern metal niuhi huaylao does not have a

spout and handle, as this old earthenware piece bad, for the bot soup is

merely ladled out of the metal pot from around the chimney-like projec

tion by means of a large spoon, and transferred to individual serving bowls.

A curious Thai ceramic hunting device is a celadon-glazed chicken

figurine (the centerpiece in figure 2) which was made at the kilns in the

amphoe (District) of Phan in Chiang Rai Province, northern Thailand.

That piece is not a figurin e, however, but a bird-call whistle that was

proba bly used to attract wild jungle fowl or other bird s to be netted.

Similarly, the Phan kilns also produced attractive celadon-glazed fish

net weights (some examples of which are shown in figure 3). Another curious Thai device is the cera mic pellet, for use in the prayucat, or

blowpipe, or with the ancient pellet-bow in hunting birds and sma ll game.

Ceramic pellets were known as luk prai. They are still used by country

folk in northeast Thailand, as anyone who bas engaged an !san (northeastern Tha i-Lao) gardener knows4.

The T hai kilns at Sukhothai and Sawankhallik produced large

quantities of ceramic building material s, especially roof tiles (see figures

4, 5 and 6) and other ceramic construc tion materials, such as balustrades

and finials (figure 6) . The Thai of that era a lso made con siderable

quantities of ceramic drainpipes (toh nam din phao) to drain water from one pond (srah) to another5.

The Thai further produced various kinds of ceramic drums for

both orchestral and military use. Known in Thai by the general ter ms

than or thap, most such drums are of a cylindrical shape, and are generally

4) The use of ceramic pellets in blowpipes by the Malays is also discussed at l ength by Charle s Wa lter, William Skeat and Ch arles Otto Blagden, Pagan R ares of the /vlalay Pemnsula (New York, Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1965), vol. II, passun .

5) See especially Sanniihora,Mwdi Samai Sukhotar ("Antiquities of Sukhothai"), (Bangkok, Department of Fine Arts, 1964) , plate facing page 13.


made of a bard-fired earthen ware over one or both ends of which bide,

snakeskin or lizard skin was tightly stretched to make a percussion

instrument. Such drums were specially popular in the northeast, where

they are still manufactured in Khon Kaen Province and continue to be

used for musica l a nd theatrical performances at wat fairs, or on other

fe stive occasions. Such drums formed an essential part of the local

northeast Thai orchestra, and are still in use today.

The most popular type of Thai ceramic drum is a gourd-shaped

instrument, the large end of which is covered with lizard or python skin.

That type of drum is called the thon mahori. The Thai also use a flat,

disc-shaped drum with hide or skin on only one side. It is sometimes

made of hard-fired earthenwa re, but more frequently is carved from a

large block of wood, or made on a light frame of plaited strips of

bamboo or rattan. Called the liim that drum, it is used principally in

a popular ballad-type performance of that name, a kind of antiphonal

recitation sung or spoken to the accompanim ent of vigorous beating of

one or severa l /am that drums. Such recitati ons are specially noted for

their ribaldry, and when I have seen such performances in the countryside,

I have always noticed that the wives of the local officials quietly with

drew very early in the performance.

Some of the drums of Java and other Javanese musical instruments

were introduced into S1am and adopted by the Thai in the Ayuddbaya

period (A.D. 1350-1763). They were popularly called klong khaek, i.e.

foreign or Javanese drums6.

The most unusual use of ceramics of which I am presently aware

were the so-called "geophones" that the Chinese employed in ancient times.

They were large, bard-fired stoneware ja rs, over the open ends of which

6) See Dhanit Yupho, Thai Musiral [ 71Stnn,ents, transl ated into English by Mr. David Morton (Ban gkok; Tbe Siva phorn Press. for the Department of Fine Arts; 1960) . pp. 31-66. Another curious t ype of drum introduced fr om abroad was the klilr'K m arikan , i.e. the Americ an d rum . a military type of snore drum that the Thai presumably copied from American mode ls. See also the very useful study of Thai musical instruments by Kurosawa Tatsuo . Investigat ion of M u>ical lnst rumPlliS w Thailand (Bang kok, Ni ppon-Ta i 8unka Kenkyii-jo [Japan-Thailand Cultural Research Institute). 1941); text in Japanese and Thai. See also the T hai Encyclopaedza, vol. I. pp. 890-94, under kl-:,ng (drums). •

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a specially thin bide was tightly stretched to make a very sensitive

diaphram. The jars were set in the earth at the bottom of deep shafts, so

that the sound of any d1ggingor tunnelling operations by an enemy force

during the siege of a walled or highly fortified town could be detected by

troops on defense duty with the jars, who had been selected specially for

their acute hearing. Such troops manned the "geophone" jars around

the clock. With sets of such jars placed at appropriate locations, it was

possible by the simple method of triangulation to pinpoint the exact

location of the enemy's siege operations and take appropriate measures7.

One important role of ceramics which tbe Thai regrettably have

neglected was its widespread use elsewhere as grave furniture. Thanks

to that very ancient custom of burying ceramics, weapons, and various

artifacts with the dead in Indonesia, China and elsewhere, many examples

of ceramic ware have been preserved, enriching thereby our knowledge

of the peoples who made such objects. Some of the Neolithic peoples

who once occupied parts of what is now Thailand followed that histo

rically valuable custom, and today we know far more about them th a n

we would ever have known had they not used ceramics and other arti

facts as grave furniture.

But between the later de-emphasis in Buddhism of the acquisition

and retention of earthly things, and its custom of cremating the dead,

the Thai limited the interment of corporeal remains to placing the

ashes after cremation in a reliquary vessel of some kind, which in

turn was placed in a brick reliquary tower, or cedi, within the precincts

of a monastery or Buddhist burial ground, if the deceased had been

a person of some social or political prominence. Otherwise, the ashes

7) There are occasional references in Chinese classical literature to such curious

devices. For example , note Alfred Forke, "Der Festunkrieg im alten China",

in Ostasiatsirche Zeitscrift (91 9), pp. I 03-116. Such devices were also

mentioned in the Taipo Ying-ching , as quoted in Tung Tien, which suggests tbeir use in the early T'ang period (A. D. 619-906). A Western para] lei of

''geophones" was noted by the Greek historian Oiktbius in Polybius (Loeb

Classical Library edition), xxxi, 28, pp. 12-25. See also Benjamin E. Wa!lacker,

"Studies in medieval Cbinese siegecraft: The siege of Yu-pi in A.D. 546",

Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XVIII no. 4, August 1969, pp. 789-802.


remaining after a cremation were, in many instances, merely thrown

into a stream or scattered unceremoniously into the sea. In some rare

cases, however, other objects including amulets and personal effects \Vere

also placed in the mortuary urn or in the C:edi, such as the objects and

artifacts that have been found at various Hindu-Buddhist buri al sites in

the northeast, at a few sites in the far north of Siam, and elsewhere in

the countrys.

Another ceramic form widely used by the Thai from early times

was the making of first sun-dried, and later kiln-fired, stoneware amulets

and figurines, most of which bad a deep-seated animistic or religious and

talismanic character. So me of the very early earthenware or plaster

ware figures found in Thailand date, of cour se from the Buddhist Moo

Kingdom of Dvaravati (A D. sixth to eleventh centuries) . That kingdom

extended over a considerable area around Suphaoburi, west of present-day

Bangkok and north of Nakhon Pathom. Take, for example, the attractive

Mun terracotta figure illustrated in figure 7, and the plasterware fi gure

shown in figure 8, both of which have an almost Mona Lisa-esque

quality to tbem9.

Talismanic amulets made and used so widely in Thailand come in

a great variety of shapes and styles, and range over an extended geogra

phical area as well as chronologically from ancient times to date. The

8) For example, see Plans and Rep01·ts of tht' Su,-vl'y of the Excavations nf A netn>t

M onu rnent5 in the North- East of Tha ila11d (Bangkok ; Sivaphorn Pre ss for the

Department of Fine Arts; 19 59), in Thai and English, especially pp. 58-59; and the more recent survey Somhat Sil po Cak Bonwen K i;en ("Relics Recovered

from the Bhumiphon Dam Site in Northern Thailand"). (Ban gkok; Siva phorn

Press for tbe De partment of Fine Arts; 1960) . with text in Th a i but all

captions for illu strati ons in both Th a i and E ng lish. That significant work illustra tes and expla ins ex amples o f ceramics. gold, silver and hron ze

artifacts, including some mini ature rel iq uary vessel s in bird a nd a nimal

sh a pes found at sites in northern Thailand tha t were subsequent ly flooded after completion of the e-normous Bhumiphon Dam , n ea r Ta k. on the Ping

River. Amo ng the ceramics were some interesting examples of Sung and Ming wa res, all of which are illu strated in the volume.

9) I recovered those pieces at an o ld Mon ced i site near Suphanburi, and they are

now in my collection. (Photographed for the author by the Freer Gallery of

Art in Washington, D.C.)

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SOME Uti:USUAL THAI AND CHINESE USES OF CERAMICS 253

Thai use the term phra phim for an amulet, which literally means a

"sacred imprint", thus implying that such objects were literally printed

or stamped. Actually today, most phra phim are made of moulded clay

that has been pressed or stamped in a die, and then fired in a kiln to

make them into a hard, almost indestructible stoneware. Nevertheless,

the implication of having been printed or stamped is significant, since

it may recall techniques from ancient India and China, ••·here (as M.

Georges Coedes has suggested ) at one time designs were indeed printed

or stamped on cloth or paper'o.

The real Thai amulet is a figure cast in metal or moulded in clay.

Amulets of the latter type are often produced in Thailand by devout

Buddhists as a merit-making act . They are distributed by the donor to

friend s and supporters, while the remaining pieces are turned over to the

monastery where they were made for sale as a highly acceptable

fund-raising operation on behalf of the monastery, which in a sense

holds a copyright on their manufacture. The figures on such amulets

generally represent a well-known local Buddhist image or a picture of a

famous local monastery, thus making phra phim very appropriate me

mentos or souvenirs for pilgrims and others visiting the monastery.

According toM. Coed es, the custom of making small holy images

by means of a stamp or die appears to have been strictly a Buddhist

practice. With all his extensive resea rch on such an esoteric subject, M.

Coedes st a tes that he cannot recall any records of any Brahmin figures

made in that fashion and fo r that purpose. On the contrary, such Bud

dhist amulet figures have been found at practically every important Bud

dhist site in Asia, from the Northwest Provinces of India and the Chinese

province of Honan to the ancient caves of the Malay Peninsula, &mong

the ruins of Sukhothai and Sawankbalok , and to the shores of Annam.

10) Georges Coed es, "Sia mese votive tab lets", J oto·ncd oj the Swm Soc1ety , vol.

XX part I , June 1926, translated into Engli sh by Mr. W.A. Graham ; pp. 1-23,

with 15 plates. The subject of Thai amulets printed or stam ped on paper or

cloth has also been surveyed by the late Pbraya Anumiin Rajadbon in his "Thai

charms and amule ts", 1bid ., vol. Llll part 2, July 1964, pp. 171-192, with five

plates and one line drawing .


While originally made perhaps as souvenirs for devout Buddhist

pilgrims, in time phra phim were accorded talismanic and magical

powers . Consequently, they were later collected primarily for that reason,

rather than as memorabilia of visits to famous wat. With the Buddhist

veneration for images, the mere act of making an image or a statue, or

for merely paying the costs of its manufacture, had lo ng become esta

bli shed among devout Buddhist as a significant source of merit-making 11.

There naturally, almost inevitably, developed a great deal of ceremony,

ritual and lore about the processes of making phra phim, and at many

monasteries their manufacture became a complicated and highly esoteric

rite. For example, clay and herbs would be gathered from no less than

108 different localities, that number being a ritually magic figure. With

Buddh1st prayers and sutra· chanting, the clay and herbs would subse

quently be worked into a malleable mass that could be easily moulded in

a die. After moulding, the images were briefly sun-dried and then kiln

fired. Customarily, the greater the number of phra phim cast and fired.

at such ceremonies, the greater the amount of merit achieved thereby.

The most auspicious number to aim at in a ceremony of that kind was a

mere 88,000 phra phim, again a ritually magical number that was

guaranteed to improve the efficacy of the amuletsl2,

Throughout the hi story of Buddhism there bas always been a spe

cial significance attached to performing some worthy act repeatedly,

when associated with prayer and merit-making; the more times the

worthy act is performed, the greater is the amount of merit accrued

thereby. Thus in some Buddhist countries, special mechanical devices,

such as the prayer wheels developed and used in Tibet and Nepal, were

employed to achieve the greatest possible degree of repellti_on and con-

II) Coedes, loc. cit , p. 2, footnote 1.

12) For the complicated calculations and origin of the figures 108 and 88. 000,

see I. W. Mabbett, "'Devarii j a", in Joumol of Southeast Asian !-listnry, vol. X

no . 2, September 19 69 . pp. 202-2 2 3, especially p. 21 I which discusses the I 08

towers constructed on and in junction with the ancient Khmer temples . The

total would be 109, of course, counting the massive central tower.

::.

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sequently accumulate the greatest possible amount of merit. According

ly, printing, stamping or cast1ng such objects as phra phim would also logically achieve those advantages 13.

Being bard-fired, a phra phim becomes virtually an indestructible stoneware that will last for centuries. Thus phra phim from ancient In

dia, or those recovered from old cedi or monastery ruins of ancient Sukhvthai, are most highly prized by the Thai for their remarkable talmismanic powers and magical properties, presumably having acquired extraordinary attributes by their long association with such a religiously significant locality. Mere age alone also seems to accord phra phim

special powers and virtues_ Some very ancient phra phim or those cast at some specially auspicious time or in a very favored locale, are

believed to be capable of preventing a gun or pistol from being fired, of deflecting the path of a bullet, or of warding off sword or dagger blows, thus rendering the wearer of such charms invulnerable to wounds. Other phra phim, it is said, have the power to ward off any manner of disease or disasters, to protect the wearer from the machinations of

evil spirits, ur reputedly give the wearer extraordinarily good fortune

in love, lottery contests, or wagering on race-horses, boxers, gamecocks, or fighting-fish.

Phra phim, especially the auspicious ones, are usually encased in gold and suspended from a gold chain worn around the neck. The charms printed on paper or cloth are sometimes merely carried in the wallet, but it is more proper and decorous as well as propitious to wrap them in thin sheets of gold, enscribed on their inner sides with appropriate symbols and auspicious marks. The rolled sheets of gold can be strung on a gold chain and worn as part of a necklace.

Even today the Thai place great store in their phra phim, and both men and women can frequently be seen with their necks loaded down with protective charms. I was once told the story of a man who was so burdened with phra phim and t he ir heavy gold chains that be was unable to swim when he fell off a boat into the river, and so drowned! That may be an apocryphal tale, but it could have happened.

13) For an excellent account of bow Buddhist id eas of repetition and multiplicity may have contributed to the development of printing in ancient China. see T.E. Carter. The !nv Pn lion of Printwg 111 China and 1/ s :::ipread Westward (New York, Columbia University Press, 19 25), passim.


Some Thai make a special point of visiting wat and other Buddhist

establishments for the sake of collecting phra phim . Scholarly books are

written on the subject to guide the collector, and at wat fairs there will

often be a very learned fellow on hand who, for a modest fee, advises

collectors of the efficaciousness or merits of their phra phim, and will sug

gest (in the latter case) what supplementary devices they may require:

for example, some additional phra phim or perhaps just a spot of talis

manic tattoooing on one's chest or back.

Some years ago I attended a fa mous amulet-casting ceremony at th~

well-known Wat Maha That in Nakh6n Sri Thammarat in the south

centra l part of peninsular Thailand . The casting was under the

sponsorship of, i.e. its costs were being defrayed by, the distinguished

General Pao Sriyanon, then Chief of the Thai National Police and

Deputy Minister of the Interior. On that august occasion he was

attended by a number of political notables and other retainers, as well

as some distinguished Buddhist monks and laymen, when no less than

the requisite number of 88,000 phra phim were scheduled to be made

during s pecial ceremonies extending over several days and nights.

Among those officiating at the ceremonies was a famous Thai moh

du, or seer, renowned for his occult powers : Archarn Chum Chaikhiri,

that is "Professor" Chum, whom I had known for some years since be bad

first been in the service of H.E. Mr. Sukhit Nimmanahaeminda, later

Thai Ambassador to the United States, and an elder brother of the well

known Chiang Mai banker and scholar Mr. Kraisri Nimmana haeminda.

I still have a memorable photograph of Professor Chum taken at the

time: of the phra phim casting cerem ony, showing that distinguished seer

consecrating me with lus t ral water that was to render me, with the col

laboration of the appropria te amulets, invulnerable to knife wounds.

In 1959 in Bangkok I attended the cremation of my former coadjutor,

Dr. Pan Lacba bhandhu, at Wat Maku t (Mongkbut). His famil y kindly

presented me with one of the phra phim be had worn for many years, a

very old and venerable piece from Sukhothai. It bas since carried me

through many dangerous passages in bandit- and fever-infested jungles, •

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enabled me to survive an airplane crash in West Pakistan and various

illnesses including a severe heart attack and a very dangerous aneurysm.

I shall always treasure that phra phim and keep it about me.

Descending from the sublime to the mundane, I shall conclude this

article on ceramic esoterica and curiosities by reference to the hard-fired

tobacco-pipe bowls that the Thai formerly made. Of course, such objects

date from a much later period in Siamese history, after the introduction

of the tobacco plant from the Americas to Asia in the fifteenth and six

teenth centuries by the Portuguese, and the subsequent spread of growing

tobacco and smoking its cured leaves in small earthenware and stone

ware pipe bowls. This interesting subject has recently been treated by

a distinguished French scholar, M. Christian Velder• 4• Several of the

pipe bowl pictures by M. Velder are almost identical with one I found

in 1965 at the excavation site for a new hotel in Chiang Mai, both as to

its shape and style of incised decoration. M. Velder also found at a Lao

site a number of ceramic lamps, almost identical with those found a t the

Amphoe Ph an kilns in Chiang Rai Province, northern Siam Is. One of

the pipe bowls illustrated by M. Velder is incised with a picture of Suwanna Hong, the mythological goose-vehicle of Hindu lore, while

another bowl portrays a bird that appears to be eating a snake and could, therefore, be a representation of the Hindu deity Garuda.

The relations of the Vientiane pipe bowls and other finds to Chiang

Mai and northern Thailand is not as strange as may first appear. Ac

cording toM. Velder, such pipe bowls and the other objects be excavated

just outside Vientiane on the road south to the Mekong River landings

at Tha Nalseng and Tha Di.ia (opposite Nong Khai in Thailand), were all patterned after prototypes that bad been brought to Vientiane from

Chiang Mai, along with other art and ritual objects, transferred from the

kingdom of Lanna Thai to Vientiane in A. D. 1547 for the coronation of

H.M. King Settheaethiwat of the Lao Kingdom of Vientiane• 6 •

14) Christian Velder, "La poterie du Vat Satthanak, Vientiane (Laos)", Felicitation Volumes of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. II (Bangkok, The Siam Society, 1965), pp. 199-200, with three plates .

15) See Spinks, op. cit . , p. 123 and plates nos. 11 and 45.

16) Velder,loccit.,p.l24.


In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that much more excava

tion and research should be done on the many contemporary Thai

earthenware and other kilns, a herculean task, which to be done properly

would require months of fi eld investigation in Thailand in the more remote

parts of tbe country to examine even a small faction of the many local

contemporary kilns and their unique earthenwares. Such work would

require, of course, munificent funding. One day, perhaps, in some future

existence I may be able to a ttempt that stimulating and exciting task.

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'~ ~ '1f,."" ... .

Figure 1. Ayuddhaya period earthenware ewer with painted decoration on the tubular section on the inside of the vessel ; height 11 em., diameter of body 15 em. (Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Osborne Hauge)

'-'

...

Figu"re 2. Left: a small 4.5 em. kendi in a shape suggestive of a dolphin . Grey and Chal iang brown glaze. Center : A Sawar.khal3k celadon bird figure with incised underglaze decoration to suggest feathers. Unlike the usual bird figurines, this piece has the legs and feet distinctly modelled. On the base of the piece, near the tail , is a hole about ~ em. in diameter, while at the tip of the tail is a very small hole (about 2.5 mm. in diameter). This ext raordinary piece is actually a whistle which gives a loud note when it is blown by means of the small hole at the tip of the tail. Height 10.5 em. Right : A small Sawankhalok painted. ware covered bowl; height 4 em. (Collection of Mr. Edward Masters)

.,

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Figure 3. Ceramic fishnet weights with celadon glaze: excavated at the Amphoe Phan kiln site in Chiang Rai Province.

Length of weight at right 7.75 em; diameter 5 em. (Author 's collection )

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~~-·-! -:;·.·~ ~ -. ~

~.._........,..._ __ .~

Figure 4. A pair of Sawankhalok end-tiles with grey glaze and a floral motif in high relief; height 26 em. Photograph by courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum (Negative No. 112; Museum No. 256-1938).

Figure 5. Glazed roof end-tile made during the Ayuddhaya period . The figure and the border of the tile have a bright orange glaze, wh i le the ground is a mpuldy, vertiginou s sort of green, like corroded copper . Height (tile only) 19 em. (Mounted by author on an ebony base. From the author 's collection .)

Roof tiles

Finial

Finial

Mortise and tenon joints

Singh a

After: Sannaborankhadi samai Sukhorhai •

Figure 6. Examples of Sukhothai building pieces. '-'

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Figure 7. A Man terra cotta figure of a dPvanama (t hephanom: LYlV11Ul), a goddess or celestial being pictured in the at titude of .. , adoration. Excavated from the site of a reliquary tower (Cedi: L'iiWJ!l ) near Suphanburi, west of Bangkok.

Height, exclusive of teak base, 15 em. (Author 's collecti on)

Figure 8. Mon plaster head of a celestial being. Excavated from the ruins of a cedi near

Suphanburi, central Thail and.

Height above wood base 12 em. (Author's collection.)

some unusual thai and chinese uses

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